401 research outputs found
Anterior Urethral Advancement in Repair of Hypospadias: A Modification of the Technique
Background/Purpose: Anterior Urethral advancement as one stage technique for hypospadias repair was first described by Ti – Shang Cheng in 1984. It was used for repair of distal and midpenile hypospadias. It was also used for treating secondary
cases and urethral fistulae. Stricture, fistulae and ventral curvature were among the complications that faced surgeons on
applying the original technique.
Materials & Methods: In the period between March1997 and December 2008,140 patients with distal penile hypospadias or anterior urethral fistula were treated with anterior urethral advancement technique with certain modifications.
Results: The usual complications of the technique (ventral curvature of the penis, urethral fistula and meatal stenosis) were avoided.
Conclusion: This study represents certain modifications that helped to a great extent in improving the results and prevented
stricture and fistula formation.
Index Word: Hypospadias, fistula, urethral advancemen
A brief investigation on the prospective of co-composted biochar as a fertilizer for Zucchini plants cultivated in arid sandy soil
Compost is commonly utilized to improve properties of infertile sandy soils, despite its high biodegradability which may increase greenhouse gases emissions. It is possible to combine compost with biochar, which degrades at a slower rate, forming a “co-composted biochar” product. This mixture could enhance plant growth parameters beyond those attained for using each component, individually. To investigate this assumption, zucchini was selected as a test plant to be grown, under greenhouse conditions, on a sandy soil that received biochar, compost or co-composted biochar (from rice straw or sugarcane bagasse (SB)) for a duration of 15 days. This timeframe was deemed sufficient to achieve a relatively stable degradation rate for compost. Application of organic materials increased both fresh and dry weights of zucchini plants, particularly when co-composted biochar of SB was used. Specifically, plant fresh weights increased by 1.24–1.71 folds when using this additive versus the control group. Additionally, availability of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in soil and their uptake by plants significantly increased owing to application of all additives, with superiority for the co-composted biochar of SB. Enhancements in plant fresh weights were strongly correlated with increasing availability and uptake of phosphorus by plants. In conclusion, organic amendments have a substantial positive impact on enhancing the nutritional status and growth of zucchini, even during the early vegetative growth stage (within the first 15 days after planting). The greatest improvements were observed when co-composted biochar of SB was used and this confirm the main hypothesis of the study
Beyond counting climate consensus
Several studies have been using quantified consensus within climate science as an argument to foster climate policy. Recent efforts to communicate such scientific consensus attained a high public profile but it is doubtful if they can be regarded successful. We argue that repeated efforts to shore up the scientific consensus on minimalist claims such as ‘humans cause global warming’ are distractions from more urgent matters of knowledge, values, policy framing and public engagement. Such efforts to force policy progress through communicating scientific consensus misunderstand the relationship between scientific knowledge, publics and policymakers. More important is to focus on genuinely controversial issues within climate policy debates where expertise might play a facilitating role. Mobilising expertise in policy debates calls for judgment, context and attention to diversity, rather than deferring to formal quantifications of narrowly scientific claims
Measurement of the Reaction in Search for the Recently Observed Resonance Structure in and systems
Exclusive measurements of the quasi-free reaction have
been performed by means of collisions at = 1.2 GeV using the WASA
detector setup at COSY. Total and differential cross sections have been
obtained covering the energy region = (2.35 - 2.46) GeV, which
includes the region of the ABC effect and its associated resonance structure.
No ABC effect, {\it i.e.} low-mass enhancement is found in the
-invariant mass spectrum -- in agreement with the constraint from
Bose statistics that the isovector pion pair can not be in relative s-wave. At
the upper end of the covered energy region -channel processes for Roper,
and excitations provide a reasonable description
of the data, but at low energies the measured cross sections are much larger
than predicted by such processes. Adding a resonance amplitude for the
resonance at =~2.37 GeV with =~70 MeV and observed
recently in and reactions leads to an
agreement with the data also at low energies
Search for the eta-mesic 4He with WASA-at-COSY detector
An exclusive measurement of the excitation function for the dd->3Heppi-
reaction was performed at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY-Juelich with the
WASA-at-COSY detection system. The data were taken during a slow acceleration
of the beam from 2.185 GeV/c to 2.400 GeV/c crossing the kinematic threshold
for the eta meson production in the dd->4He-eta reaction at 2.336 GeV/c. The
corresponding excess energy with respect to the 4He-eta system varied from
-51.4MeV to 22MeV. The integrated luminosity in the experiment was determined
using the dd->3Hen reaction. The shape of the excitation function for the
dd->3Heppi- was examined. No signal of the 4He-eta bound state was observed. An
upper limit for the cross-section for the bound state formation and decay in
the process dd->(4He-eta)bound->3Heppi- was determined on the 90% confidence
level and it varies from 20nb to 27nb for the bound state width ranging from
5MeV to 35MeV, respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure
Search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay in Xe with EXO-200
We report on a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of Xe with
EXO-200. No signal is observed for an exposure of 32.5 kg-yr, with a background
of ~1.5 x 10^{-3} /(kg yr keV) in the region of interest. This
sets a lower limit on the half-life of the neutrinoless double-beta decay
(Xe) > 1.6 x 10 yr (90% CL),
corresponding to effective Majorana masses of less than 140-380 meV, depending
on the matrix element calculation
Search for a dark photon in the decay
The presently world largest data sample of pi0 --> gamma e+e- decays
containing nearly 5E5 events was collected using the WASA detector at COSY. A
search for a dark photon U produced in the pi0 --> gamma U --> gamma e+e- decay
from the pp-->pp\pi^0 reaction was carried out. An upper limit on the square of
the U-gamma mixing strength parameter epsilon^2 of 5e-6 at 90% CL was obtained
for the mass range 20 MeV <M_U< 100 MeV. This result together with other recent
experimental limits significantly reduces the M_U vs. \epsilon^2 parameter
space preferred by the measured value of the muon anomalous magnetic moment.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; improved analysis extending the exclusion region
to 20 MeV<M_U< 100 MeV; implemented changes requested by referee
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